


up in smoke

by moonrocks



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, M/M, Murder Mystery, Pseudo 1940s Setting, Slow Dancing, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25539940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrocks/pseuds/moonrocks
Summary: Kendall watches the horizon, skyscrapers bursting up through the ground like concrete giants. He lights a cigarette. July in Manhattan, 1948. Saturday, before sunrise.Inspired by mavoorik's lovelynoir-style Stendall fan art.
Relationships: Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	up in smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Mavoorik's art consistently gives me brain worms. Here are this week's current worms in word form.

Kendall watches the horizon, skyscrapers bursting up through the ground like concrete giants. July in Manhattan, 1948. Saturday, before sunrise.

Kendall lights his cigarette. The flame dances near his teeth as the cherry end glows red, illuminating his face for the briefest moment before dimming again. He takes a drag, lets the smoke draw him away from his thoughts and into the view out in front of him. The air is muggy, begging to be cut apart by the colourful fizzle of fireworks. Even on the twentieth floor, Kendall can smell the bitter tang of car exhaust below. The smoke from his cigarette cloaks it for a moment before dissipating, allowing him to breathe in the city once more.

He keeps his gaze fixed on the skyline, unblinking until his watery tear ducts morph the city lights into star beams. He fears if he closes his eyes, he will see it again. The luxury ocean liner, entombed with the Roy name, cutting through the water. The woman, clutching herself at the edge of the lower deck. Kendall could feel the mist beating against his alcohol numbed cheeks as he accidentally stumbled out into the cold, the raucous party fading behind him. 

Kendall takes another drag of his cigarette in a desperate attempt to avoid the memory, but the taste only pulls him farther in. A cigarette had also hung from his mouth that night as he leaned over the railing, the ocean breaking beneath him. The foamy water, churned up by the liner, looked like pulled cotton and soap suds. It sizzled, festered, and Kendall, cocaine still dissolving in his nostrils, believed for a moment he was falling into a dream.

Pulled in by his own reflection. Sinking underneath its surface. Another drag. Another memory.

Kendall had seen the woman by accident, like catching the coat-tails of a ghost at the corner of his eye. She was dressed in the stylish garb of the cocktail waitresses who had been serving them drinks. Baby blue, a plastic lei of pale lilies hanging around her neck. Above the sound of the water breaking, Kendall thought he heard her weeping.

He had drunkenly stared, wavering on his feet. When he blinked, a shadow had approached her, hazy and indistinct and half-concealed by the rail. It was only there for a moment. Then, the woman was gone, the lei of lilies, ripped from her neck, vanishing beneath the waterline. The ship barreled forward, a passenger lighter.

As Kendall would learn in the following days, there was no evidence. No paper trail. It was like she never existed. Yet, Kendall saw her.

He must have.

Another drag. Kendall blows smoke.

It disappears.

Halfway through his cigarette, Stewy decides to join him. His hair—usually tidily fashioned against his head—is slightly rumpled from sex and sleep. He has re-dressed since drifting off in Kendall’s bed, his well-tailored suit jacket draped over his right arm, somehow unwrinkled despite Kendall’s earlier desperation to get it off. The top three buttons of his dress shirt remain unbuttoned, exposing his neck to the heat and Kendall’s wandering eyes. 

Stewy smirks as he walks out onto the balcony, the door sliding shut behind him. A martini is perched in his hand, wrist lazily flicked outwards as he swirls the translucent liquid clockwise then counterclockwise in the glass. Kendall can barely make out his features in the dark. They morph into a singular shadow, yet he can see the flicker of Stewy’s smile, goading him like a jab to the side. 

“Having trouble sleeping again?” Stewy asks, falling into place beside Kendall like he always does.

He leans against the railing, but the toe of his polished Oxford shoe stays firmly planted behind it. Kendall feels the sudden urge to put his foot through the rails and feel his laces dangle in the uninterrupted air. Instead, he nods, takes another drag.

“Was never much good at it,” he says. 

“Well, need any company while you weather the wiles of insomnia?” Stewy chuckles. He takes a sip of his drink, still smiling behind the lip of his glass. It distorts his mouth, tautly pulling the corners of his lips into a cat-like grin. “And by “company” I mean do you need a stiff drink?”

Stewy tips his martini glass forward. Kendall shakes his head. He stretches out his hand and flicks ash onto the patio. It floats downwards like dandruff, collecting into an untidy pile. 

“I, uh, already have company,” Kendall says, gesturing towards his cigarette.

He raises it to his lips again. Inhales, exhales. He feels the sting of tobacco sweating the lining of his lungs. He pictures them beading with perspiration, filling up with smoke that turns to steam that turns to water. Drowning him.

Stewy rolls his eyes. Kendall can see the whites of them, overly prominent in the glow of the lamplight that penetrates the balcony door. The desk beneath the adjacent window is strewn with papers: company files, ocean liner guest lists, employment records, expense reports. It was the maximum amount of documents Kendall could check out of the archives without raising the suspicion of the on-duty clerk. In the eyes of upper management, it already looks like Kendall is searching for something.

“Well then,” Stewy says. “Perhaps you’d like some company that won’t go up in smoke?”

Stewy punctuates the question by taking another sip of his martini. Kendall sighs, his breath opaque.

“Everything goes up in smoke eventually, Stew.” 

Stewy raises an eyebrow inquisitively, but his skepticism is tempered by his concern. “Like the woman?” 

Internally, Kendall winces. He turns away from Stewy and regards the city skyline again. “I saw her, Stewy. She was there. She was—she was real. She had to be,” he says. “I can’t get it out of my head. I—I can’t forget.”

“I know, Ken.”

Kendall knows Stewy has heard all of this before, in more or fewer words. Stewy sets down his glass onto the railing and closes the minimal amount of space between them. He lightly palms Kendall’s shoulder. His hand lingers there briefly, teasing out the ache in his pounding temples, the heaviness of his eyelids. Kendall takes another puff of his cigarette to amplify the effect. 

“How far do you think this thing goes?” Stewy asks.

Kendall shrugs, taps more ash onto the patio. A slight breeze finds its way through the cluster of apartment complexes to carry it away. “No fucking idea,” Kendall says. “Either the books have been scrubbed or the documents were destroyed.” He feels his stomach sink. “No missing person report, no nothing.”

“And your statement?”

“No record of it.”

Stewy nods. Kendall can see the cogs turning in his head. He already knows what Stewy is going to ask. 

“And your father—”

“—same spiel as when I first told him,” Kendall interrupts. “Reefer madness, dope fiends, I—” He shakes his head. “He doesn’t believe what I saw. He—he—he’s clueless, Stew. Especially after his stroke. He has nothing to do with this.”

Stewy frowns. “You trust him?” 

His tone is borderline accusatory, and yet softened by the calculated way he always nudges Kendall forwards or back. 

“If it goes any higher, it stops at management,” Kendall insists. “Nothing points to family involvement.”

“Then what are you looking for in those executive papers?” Stewy bites. “Your father’s sign-off?” 

It stings before Kendall can cloak it in denial. Kendall averts his eyes. He steps away from the railing and turns his back towards Stewy. He smokes the last of his cigarette, then throws it onto the ground, stamps it out with his heel. It dissolves against the pavement. 

“Ken, you need to be careful,” Stewy says softly. “If you get in over your head—”

“I know.”

Kendall decides that he needs that drink after all. He goes inside, not bothering to close the door, knowing Stewy will follow him. He heads to the bar, pours himself a finger of vodka in the first glass he can grab. No ice. He gulps it down. 

His back is still turned, but he hears the balcony door slide closed, then Stewy’s footsteps sound against the floor. The record player in the corner is still running. It plays the final grooves of the record they were listening to earlier, the lead-out repetitively crackling through the phonograph like breakfast cereal in milk. Stewy goes over to it, delicately picking up the needle and placing it back down on the outer edge. 

A jazz song comes through: the playful lilt of a clarinet, fingers flirting over piano keys, strings and brass, then a crooning voice. Kendall goes to pour himself another drink, but he pauses as Stewy approaches. He feels lips against his neck above his shirt collar, dragging up towards his hair. A hand firmly presses into his waist. 

“Hey,” Stewy says and his breath falls warmly over Kendall’s skin, soothing it like a salve. “You alright?”

“Hm,” Kendall grunts as he sets the bottle of vodka down. 

“Ken.” Another hand against his waist. The music swells, bringing Kendall back to that night. He sees the waves, the lilies, then nothing. “You know you can’t trust anyone, right? Not with this, not with anything.”

“Not even you,” Kendall says, echoing what Stewy has told him time and time again. “But it might be too late for that now.”

Stewy chuckles against Kendall’s shoulder. “Never too late.”

The record continues to spin, promising the usual fodder of moonlit walks and serendipitous meetings and lifelong love. Stewy begins to sway gently to the music. He pulls Kendall along with him. They teeter for a moment, back and forth, and then Kendall gives in. He turns to face Stewy, briefly meeting his eyes as they crinkle with smile lines before dropping his head into the crook of his neck. 

Kendall breathes him in as Stewy presses a hand into the small of his back, drawing him close, close, and closer still. Stewy smells like clean linen and his usual cologne, homey and familiar yet evocative of times spent at debauched jazz clubs or ritzy parties that Kendall only faintly remembers. They move together, barely dancing, but the movement is close enough that Kendall feels aligned with the music. It soothes him, distracts him from the water in his ears, the shadow behind his eyelids. He closes them and only sees black, a wisp of smoke curling in the centre of each pupil.

The guiding voice gradually fades out into nothing. Kendall feels himself being pulled back into the present and out of the dark. In between the silence, Stewy kisses him, gentle and slow just like their dance. The kiss is deceptive, meant to placate Kendall, but Kendall has a thousand reasons to accept the lie. 

It asks him to forget. So for a moment, he does just that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
